Amalee Bowen

“One Pale Ribbon” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #232

My cheek is cold where it presses against the glass of the car window. I huddle deeper into my winter coat, trying to keep warm, but I keep my eyes trained on the night sky. I know that the northern lights are not like meteorites, where if you blink you’ll miss them. But I watch for the aurora the same way, regardless. We’ve already failed to see the northern lights seven times. It’s always the same. Every night I check the NOAA’s Space Weather Forecast, hoping that the green band will revolve around the globe and expand enough to cover...

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“The Monster of Time” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #230

(Trigger Warning: Contains mention of death due to neglect) They say clocks used to make a sound. An incessant ticking marking the passing of time. Our clocks today are more accurate, I think. Time marked only by a steady changing of numbers, silently progressing until you suddenly realize it has all slipped away.  These days, everything changes in a blink of an eye. Empires rising and falling like the soundwaves of a song, newly made and newly destroyed with each new wave of technology. Life is a frantic hum and we all race to keep...

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“The Muse” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #207

My fingers trailed across the back of his neck, above the ragged collar of his t-shirt. The young musician was bent over his guitar, alone in the dimly lit studio. The computer screens cast a blue glow on his face.            I would leave him with one last burst of inspiration, one final fragment of a melody. It was not a gift–he would chase this song for the rest of his life, all in vain.            “Yes, this is it,” he muttered...

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“Brimstone” by Amalee Bowen

Thunder rumbled over the mountains. Storm clouds darkened the western sky, rolling in over the peaks. Lightning flickered among them, the white forked tongue of a rattlesnake. I could see the town from this distance, nestled at the base of the foothills, like a fat, contented hen under the approaching shadow of the afternoon summer storm.  At the sight of the town, far-off though it was, thunder rumbled in my chest. In the years since I had been gone, it seemed the place had only prospered, sprawling out even further than before. ...

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“The Recusants” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #203

I wished the streets would just swallow me whole, but this city had teeth, and it had dug deep into my skin and stripped me down to the bone. My whole life flayed open, my identity ripped from me, all the joy devoured in one bite. All that remained was the rain pouring into the dark, muddy alleyways, and the shelter of shadows beneath boarded up windows.  My hand dripped blood into the puddles at my feet as I limped through the alleyway, pressing close to the concrete walls when red and blue lights flashed through the damp night. All I...

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“Silver Stranger” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #199

I wanted to hurl my phone into the street, where cars sped by in a blur of exhaust and chrome. I imagined the glass cracking, the metal wrenched apart, the screen blinking frantically in its dying sputters as it split apart. The tires would roll over it, uncaring, just as the cars and the people passed by, uncaring. I squeezed my phone tighter, feeling the edges of the case press into the meat of my palm. The cost of replacing it would outweigh the momentary satisfaction of watching it break apart. Instead, gripping my phone in one hand and ...

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“The Key is to Know Thyself” by Amalee Bowen

The day was overcast–barren tree branches against a blank sky. Bleary eyed, I was drinking a cup of coffee over the sink and hoping the caffeine would transform into motivation to accomplish all the reading I had to do for class.  A clatter came from the direction of my room. Strange. I was pretty sure my roommate was out at the moment. Perhaps something had fallen off my dresser or desk. I did have a lot of junk just kind of tossed on any spare surface. I poured the dregs off the coffee down the drain and shuffled back to my room.&nbs...

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“The Refugee's Road” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #110

My feet hurt. It’s a low dull ache that starts in the soles and burns in my calves and clenches in my back. I try to count the pebbles I kick from the dirt path to distract myself from that ache, but my mind returns to it again and again like a tongue probing the empty space a tooth once sat.  I’ve learned that every place has a feeling--the combination of the experience of the senses with the emotions of the heart. This place is the feeling of abrasive sand between my toes despite the fact that I am wearing socks and tennis shoes. Thi...

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“Hello Stranger” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #101

My feet stuck to the floorboards as I walked across the apartment. The summer night was sultry, but not in an exotic way. Instead of the air being thick with spice and jungle sounds, it clung to me like a damp hand pressed against the back of my neck. Any sound was drowned out by the dull roar of the fan spinning in my bedroom, trying to get the stagnant air flowing. It was the kind of heat where even a glass of cold water sweat onto the countertop. Sometimes I hated summer.  The hour was late, close to midnight. Everything was dark an...

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“Sunwashed Solstice” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #99

I paused on the long path up the mountain. It wound around the mountain like a long snake coiled back on itself, like folded sheets stacked in the top of a closet. When I was younger I never understood its purpose. Why go back and forth and back and forth across the mountain side, almost crossing your own path, when you could just pelt up the sharp ridge to the top in half the time? I used to just race up the ridge, my teeth set against the burn in my calves and my lungs as I clambered up the steep, rocky side. You just had to plow ahead on ...

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“The Ocean Will Not Take Me Back” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #98

The ocean would not take me back. The depths had lost their luminescence for me. Now their waters were dark and murky. I fought against the force of the water pushing me up towards the surface, trying to claw and kick my way through with my frail limbs. Even as I struggled to swim down deeper, I could feel the air being crushed from my lungs and the further down I swam the more I could feel the pressure in my ears, around my fragile skull. Saltwater forced its way up my nose, until I was choking on the smell of seaweed and preservation sent ...

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“Flamelight” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #93

In other years, the light of moon and stars would shine upon the white stone path, illuminating the processional way through the dark to the place where the first lights would be lit. Or in other years, the thick clouds would brighten the sky, heavy with the promise of snow. Or in other years, the snow-packed plains would glimmer palely in the night and the path would form a trench, a way through. This year, the dark was complete. The ground was frozen solid, but barren, a scorched stain. The sky was obscured by the lingering billows of...

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“The Winter Cabin” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #77

I had worn a tank top in defiance of my sentence to exile. Everyone had heard the stories of the Winter Cabin. Judge Taylor liked to send some of the worst cases there. As long as they hadn’t straight up murdered someone. Apparently he drew the line there. I had briefly considered whether it was worth going to real jail for the rest of my life for murder to escape the Winter Cabin.  All I knew was that the people who went in came out different. Without the spirit and fire they had gone in with. Well. They weren’t going to break me. Th...

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“(Earth) Day” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #74

The thin white metal of the wall shrieked as I scoured another tally mark into the wall with a jagged shard of steel broken off from one of the exterior plates on the ship. The last grains of sand in the hourglass trickled out. I watched them fall and then immediately flipped the hourglass over to the other side. Another twelve hours gone by. The colored sand slid down into the funnel, the seconds dribbling out once again. Earth seconds, earth minutes, earth hours, earth days. All our calculations written in numbers meaningless without these...

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“Ejected” by Amalee Bowen

Submitted to Contest #70

The corridor is unnaturally quiet as I head out of the cafeteria back towards the lab for my shift, still picking out the remnants of the, frankly disappointing, sandwich from between my teeth. I hear the clank and creak of the metal floor beneath my boots and I even notice the ever present hum of the craft’s engines and electricity. It’s always there but indiscernible at most times, the way you don’t hear your heartbeat or your breathing unless something changes.  I pause in the corridor, a creeping feeling crawling over me. There’s n...

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